This is Rigged in Holyrood Palace
Today nine people with This Is Rigged , carrying flags and banners, have staged a sit-in in the royal dining room at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. The group currently remains in place and is eating food.
At 1.15 PM on the 19th of February, 9 people with the direct action campaign ‘This Is Rigged’ entered the royal dining room at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, carrying banners with the slogans including ‘is treasa tuath na tighearna’ (the slogan of the Highland Land League, translating to ‘the people are mightier than a lord’), and ‘change begins in the kitchen, not the boardroom,’ and tartan napkins reading ‘TiR.’ They crossed the barrier and sat down at the table, and began eating food out of tupperwares and drinking tea out of flasks they brought along. The group remains in place. This is Rigged are calling on supermarkets to slash prices of baby formula to March 2021 prices, and demanding the Scottish Government fully fund and implement a community food hub per every 500 households in Scotland.
Speaking about why she took action today, Josephine O’Connor, 22, a student based in Glasgow, said: “I’m taking action because I’m really worried about the future. as the many crises that we are facing are continuing to worsen, it becomes more apparent that those with power are not coming to help, that profit once again reigns higher than people. that this is in our hands…we need to speak up and take up space because it is our future.”
This Is Rigged explains that, if the Scottish Government won’t provide communities with a warm space to get a healthy, nutritious meal, they will reclaim spaces themselves, highlighting the problem until the government stops ignoring it. Scotland is bound by the International Bill of Human Rights to ensure the right to food for its people [1]. The Scottish Government is currently failing to meet that obligation, even though, in 2014, under the Good Food Nation policy, it committed to making good quality food accessible to all by 2025 [2].
Despite this commitment, 1 in 4 Scots experienced food insecurity in the past year [3]. A thousand children a year are hospitalised for malnutrition, and many parents have resorted to stealing baby formula (which has increased on average 24% since March 2021) in order to feed their children [4][5]. Supermarkets have increasingly cracked down on shoplifters, in what This is Rigged have called “an act of corporate violence,” with some Sainsbury’s stores installing exit barriers that force customers to scan their receipts before they can leave the shops [6]. This is Rigged are now demanding that supermarkets slash the prices of baby products back to March 2021.
This is Rigged are also demanding that the Scottish Government fully fund community food hubs per every 500 households in Scotland (approx. 4,000 hubs). Every citizen has a right to food under the International Bill of Human Rights and the Scottish Government has pledged to make good quality food accessible to all by 2025 [1][2]. As of 2024, these promises are yet to be fulfilled. Supermarkets continue to exploit our rights and fail to provide accessible, nutritious food at fair prices even as they publish record profits [7][8][9].
Speaking about why she took action today, Jasmin Robertson, 19, a student and grower from the Highlands said,
“Our food system is something that connects us all, but it has become so fragile in the hands of profiteering corporations. It’s time we make space around the table for people, and invest in communities, in a food system that is equal and just, that doesn’t let individuals profit from collective struggle. The Scottish Government have to stick to their promises of a ‘Good food Nation’, it’s time we take back the power from corporate greed!”
Sorcha Ní Mháirtín, 30, a community food worker from Ireland and based in Glasgow, said: “Access to good food is a human right. The cost of food has risen dramatically, meaning many in Scotland face huge challenges in accessing appropriate food. I want the government to take notice and to better fund social infrastructures that support people to access food in a dignified manner.”
This Is Rigged is asking the Scottish Government to meet with them to discuss the implementation of community food hubs, which is part of their demands centred around the cost of living crisis to establish these hubs per 500 households.
Today’s action follows Sunday’s ‘March for Scran’ in Glasgow, in which 70 people with This Is Rigged organised in peaceful protest against the hegemonic profiteering of supermarkets in the cost-of-living crisis, marching through Glasgow and sitting-in at supermarkets [10].
During the latter half of 2023, This is Rigged also carried out a series of ‘Robin Hood’ style actions, redistributing food from supermarket shelves to food banks. They have vowed to escalate their actions until their redistributive demands are met. [11][12][13][14]
Hannah Bright, a community worker and This is Rigged co-founder said:
“The banner held in the royal dining room today read ‘is treasa tuath na tighearna’ – the Gaelic slogan of the Highland Land League, meaning ‘the people are mightier than a lord.’ This sentiment, and the targeting of the palace, was not accidental. The present day cost-of-living crisis (or, more accurately, the cost of greed crisis) is yet another example in a historic trend of greedy lairds making profit by stripping ordinary folk of the ability to sustain themselves. While a quarter of Scots face food insecurity, already-rich CEOs line their pockets by increasing prices far beyond normal inflation. Simon Roberts, the CEO of Sainsbury’s, recently increased his salary to £5million; meanwhile, a third of Sainsbury’s workers have reported having to skip meals to afford their rent. Furthermore, while community spaces throughout Scotland lose funding and face closure, the taxpayer pays for empty dining rooms to be memorialised as testament to the rich folk who once dined there. We look to the Highland Land League, who reclaimed land stolen from them by carrying out land raids and rent strikes, as a reminder that we do not have to take this lying down: we can fight back, reclaim space, and, crucially, reclaim the resilience and power of our communities in the face of the uncertainty of the coming years. As escalating climate collapse threatens our food supplies, we cannot be at the mercy of these greedy modern-day lairds, reliant on their whims and occasional charity to meet our foundational needs. We are asking that the Scottish Government meet with us to discuss the implementation of a community food hub per every 500 households in Scotland – not another standardised government handout scheme, but a warm space where any member of the community can access three square meals a day. As it stands, the government has repeatedly broken their own commitments and violated their responsibility, under the International Bill of Human Rights, to provide the right to food to every citizen. You cannot solve this problem by pretending it doesn’t exist – we will continue to disrupt, to confront, to resist, until we see material change. Food is a human right. Hunger is a political choice.”
[1] ICESCR – International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (part of the International Bill of Human Rights. As part of the UK, Scotland is bound by this bill to ensure its citizens have access to basic rights, including the Right to Food.
[2] In 2014, the Scottish government promised that by 2025 they would be “a Good Food Nation, where people from every walk of life take pride and pleasure in, and benefit from, the food they produce, buy, cook, serve, and eat each day.” https://www.gov.scot/policies/food-and-drink/good-food-nation/
[3] Hunger in Scotland – 1.2 million people in Scotland experienced food insecurity in the past year: https://www.trusselltrust.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/2023-Hunger-in-Scotland-report-AW-web.pdf
[4] Novara: Parents are having to steal formula: https://novaramedia.com/2023/06/21/parents-are-having-to-steal-formula-milk-make-it-free-again/
[5] Baby formula has an average of 24% between March 2021 and April 2023:
First Steps Nutrition Trust Cost of Living & Infant Nutrition Report: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59f75004f09ca48694070f3b/t/6462575da539fa597ba486d4/1684166494259/First+Steps+Nutrition+Trust+Cost+of+Living+Briefing+May+2023+final.pdf
[6] The radical steps Sainsbury’s, M&S and Sports Direct are taking to stop shoplifting: https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2023/06/shoplifting-sainsburys/
[7] The Standard: Sainsburys Chief Sees Pay Deal Jump to Almost £5m amid Cost of Living Crisis – https://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/sainsbury-s-chief-sees-pay-deal-jump-to-almost-ps5m-amid-costofliving-crisis-b1086020.html
[8] Tesco criticised as chief pockets £4.75m amid soaring prices
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/13/tesco-chief-soaring-prices-ken-murphy-profits
[9] PRESS RELEASE: SAINSBURY’S IS RIGGED
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zoTS61YI13oaGivIEWoh7myhXcTBLrFFk0RiSUtPmHE/edit
[10] PRESS RELEASE: MARCH FOR SCRAN
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gt5XWgM3AVy8bu1okvAc1qlnb8vLUhhlUmbBnSzuUpE/edit
[11] PRESS RELEASE: ROBIN HOOD
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-OZToaX4375ApQO2OHHqjFaWGV-i7WtTF3sXdM3tANg/edit?usp=share_link
[12] PRESS RELEASE: ROBIN HOOD 19/11
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o7VW67UC40iBvUb5YaGv11a72jss9TrWhPJgz2R_Esg/edit?usp=share_link
[13] PRESS RELEASE: ROBIN HOOD 05/12
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lvzeP7FX5ef2bzGriDWMXBeCxYlN_b_eJoVOh3pSzek/edit?usp=share_link
#[14]This is Rigged’s statement on Robin Hood actions: “Big oil and gas, energy and agribusiness are wreaking social and environmental havoc. Global elites must learn that infinite profit is impossible on a finite planet.”
https://www.thisisrigged.org/robin-hood
‘S math rinn iad ! Here’s to being a Good Food Nation 4 real . 4 everyone.
More power to these brave young people. God help us all if we don’t resist our own exploitation and dis-empowerment.
My first reaction was “just more performative activism”, but I have to say it that food security, like energy security is a massive issue. Today’s elites can afford to live without being worried for their own.
There is a huge gulf between those who govern/run our institutions and the rest of us.
We are a fractured society.
But beware, a Marxist or neo-Marxist system would result in despotism and religion-like madness that would result in more suffering.
Globalism or Imported political psuedo-social-social ideology we see-today is not a substitute for a true sense of being rooted in your community, your nation, your shared values, your willingness to sacrifice yourself for the common good.
The things that made our society strong are now sneered at. This includes self-reliance; equating rights with responsibilities; free-speech; a work-ethic, respect for one another. I could go on.
This natural way of living together has ceased to be. It is not something that can be imposed. It evolves overtime and comes from mutual respect and understanding.
Many people make the mistake of blaming the global elites for operating as a conspiratorial cabal like the WEF etc. The reality is simpler than that. The Western world is run by privileged individuals – a technocracy that listens only to itself, and has lost the art of listening to the less-privileged, or of forming a consensus with the wider population.
The ranks of the educated elites have swollen dramatically in recent decades. They now value their own cultural values and personal ambitions over the wellbeing and cohesion of their immediate society. This technocracy is a form of dictatorship enabled by a super-rich with a technology that now dominates.
We need to return to basics. To restore a sense of who we are and those things we share. Our local and national identities have been steadily eroded, and it is this that has driven the indy movement, Brexit, and the rise of populism.
Yet, the globalist educated technocracy and ideologically driven are utterly blind to their role in destroying that which made us strong and gave us a true sense of togetherness.
The funny thing is that you will now see signs of it in non-Western societies who adopted the nationalism that made the Western countries strong, sure, Germany took it to extremes, but is the West going is destroy itself because if the peculiar inclinations of one nation?
Think unity and evolution not selfishness and revolution.
Your first reaction was ‘just etc’ and your second reaction was to repeat the nonsense about educated elites and all the other ultra right wing conspiracy theories you spout on a regular basis.
The reason did where we are is at root pretty simple:
greed
unregulated/unfettered capitalism on a national and international level
the erosion of the state safety nets.
government policies (or lack off)
increased insecurity both job and social
the lack of sense of community and encouragement of acting for the greater good of all of society.
This is not driven by an educated elite but by a political drive by the richest and most powerful in society. These are greedy individuals (eg newspaper barons so called tech bros) and greedy global corporations.
Food banks are a political choice.
To try and blame graduates, many of whom have worked their whole life in public service trying to help others is patently just ill informed, hateful crap.
John, I think your reply to SteveH was a little harsh. You both seem to agree about the root, cultural problem. As a former academic, I agree that it is foolish to blame graduates. Graduates should be well equipped to think for themselves, but are sadly products of an education system that has itself been captured by a destructive nihilistic ideology. Huxley was spot on when he made ‘Our Ford’ and ‘Our Freud’ the gods of Brave New World. We need more EF Schumacher and less ‘econometrics’. Bring back the study of human ecology.
I will stick my neck out and say that as far as I can see the WEF is indeed a conspiracy, hiding in plain sight. At the least there is a conspiracy of silence. But of course these things are merely symptoms of the destructive culture and philosophy that has rooted itself is everywhere and is destroying us all. We so easily become overwhelmed by negativity and despair. It’s really good to see this article.
Well done to This is Rigged, because they are right. We are human beings, social animals that work best in fairly small, mutually supportive groups. It’s great to see the Land League motto. If the Land League re-formed and stood in the elections, I could vote for them.
John- I think you are being a bit harsh on me.
If you read Stevie H’s contributions there may be some similarities in our diagnosis but he appears to apportion blame primarily to graduates, Neo-Marxists?, immigrants and other minorities. His prognosis is entirely different as it seems to be a very nationalistic remedy including rallying round the Royal Family and Union Jack and many of our 21st problems will be solved. The whole issue of poverty and hunger in what is still a rich country IMO is increasing inequality and the lack of regard government and institutions of state have for individual citizens and supporting them, rather than demonising them, in their hour of need.
I have clearly set out where I think the blame lies and this is clearly different from Stevie H.
Yes he will try and tap into narrative of discontent but does this primarily to promote his own agenda of punching down on minorities which I oppose.
If you doubt me just reread his second last paragraph and tell me I am wrong and being harsh.
I tend to agree John. SteveH has all the hallmarks of a right wing populist and potentially quite an extreme one. I think we only touch the surface of his real views here. He tries to slightly distance himself from it by talking about what he analyses as causing the rise of populism but fails to say the obvious, that he is a right wing populist himself, is part of the rise and wants it to happen and so is revelling in this change.
So yes, blame elites which in this case is simply people with an education, ‘intellectuals’, wonder where we have heard that demonisation before? Oh yes that country that took nationalism ‘too far’. Too far – that’s it for one of the most hideously mass-murderous and repressive regimes in the entirety of human history who literally slaughtered masses of its intellectuals in the 1930s along with millions of others later?
At the same time he talks about the people and how they must wake up to this, turn against the intellectuals and then all be really nice to each other of what is left, with basic values (having presumably also got rid of all the foreigners), though basic values that only apply to those ‘deep rooted’ in their nation i.e. indigenous people only, an ethnically-privileged state
We all know where that is heading.
Niemand – thanks for your supportive response.
You have identified how right wing fanatics operate by tapping into popular discontent, identifying groups to blame (often minority and powerless) to stir up hatred and blame.
The powerful are often happy to let the Stevie H’s develop this narrative as it distracts people from looking at who has real wealth and power.
Lastly the the right wing fanatics like to flood media with their narratives to try and get their view across and in some cases legitimised.
History can teach us how this is done, what the potential outcome is and why we should call out and reject these views at every opportunity.
You have correctly pointed out that Stevie H is not very effective and pretty easy to see through.
@SteveH, how many of those posing as rugged individualists are actually in some sort of assisted living? Like in the military? The British imperial past was the opposite of self-reliance since it was based on taking from others elsewhere, and used widespread terror, drug-running and colonial recruitment because it was actually much weaker than it might have appeared. But your Captain Manwhoring persona aside, true self-reliance does not originate at the national level, nor is there a national personality that its public shares (a common form of British imperial racism).
Approaches to doom-resilience vary culturally, though:
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/apocalypse-maybe/2024/2/14/ok-doomer
Of course, one of the most pervasive forms of assistive living is maintained by consumer capitalism, where we live off the exploited labour of people whose lives and deaths we never see, and at the expense of the non-human living world, often arranged by neocolonialism these days. The kind of people who make all the kit for rugged individualists. In what way was Nazi Germany too extreme even for you, by the way? Or did you just feel impelled to season your admiration?
All living should be mutually assistive. That’s socialism.
Socialism is the road to serfdom.
You can use google then to rent a quote!
Hunger and food banks are the reality of UK (still a prosperous country) in 2024 and last time I checked the Conservatives had been in power since 2010.
Maybe you are one of the right wing nuts who consider Sunak a socialist?
Socialism is the abolition of serfdom. It’s our liberation, through mutual assistance, from want; a political economy in which everyone contributes to our commonwealth according to their ability and, in return, receives from our commonwealth according to their need.
Define ability, define need.
That’s why ‘socialism’ requires dictatorship to implement socialist policies. Always has done, always will do as people have conflicting opinions as to ability/needs so Big Brother needs to decide.
Someone’s just earned their NHS Do Not Resuscitate order:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_resuscitate
ability (noun): possession of the means or skill to do something
need: (noun): circumstances in which something is necessary; necessity.
There’s no good reason why our relative needs and abilities can’t be decided democratically, as an expression of the general will, by free and equal deliberation, rather than autocratically, by authoritarian dictat.
Define ability, define need? Authoritarianism assumes that only the ‘authorities’ can define these things. Authoritarianism is just that, whatever flag it flies. State communism is fake socialism – it’s just Big Brother pretending to act in a ‘public interest’ as defined by himself. It’s a short hop to fascism where Big Brother just acts in his own interest, power and wealth being their own justification. And the public interest is of no significance at all and the super-rich just do as they please. Because they can. They are above ‘slave morality’.
Real socialism is about mutual aid, where ability and need are defined by general consensus, not by Big Brother. An inability to accept consensus decisions arises from fear and mistrust. Especially fear of the ‘masses’, who might define their own needs and abilities differently from you.
@John Wood, need is essentially based on health, not will, as a series of simple thought experiments will confirm. Which of your needs disappear when you are asleep? Is understanding your life support systems (current and future) a requirement to fulfil your needs? Etc.
Which is why a needs-based socialism can never be a dictatorship (neither of Leader nor Masses): the Will is largely irrelevant. And of course there are many other social animals which don’t have humanistic ideologies but who have adapted, evolved to optimise health.
Even Bakunin recognised (only) the authority of the natural world.
@ SD
Aye; but what of Albert Schweitzer’s insight that nature is animated by an instinctive will-to-live?
Also: forms of life evolve to no purpose (scientific accounts of life eschew teleology), including that of optimising an organism’s health, physical or otherwise.
@Lord Parakeet the Cacophonist, that is different from individual lifeforms developing purposes of their own. Life, a value-creating phenomena.
I am fascinated by the politics of Shakespeare’s plays, and there is a piece of speech by King Lear, Act 2 scene 4:
“O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s: thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need,–
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!”
https://shakespeare.mit.edu/lear/lear.2.4.html
The play King Lear is really centred on the contention between Will and Health on a national scale, and covers many of the reasons why Will is such a bad governor. And like many of Shakespeare’s plays, the sense of non-human governance is much more profound than in many of the modern dramas I’ve seen.
‘…individual lifeforms developing purposes of their own.’
So, which is it to be: ‘will’ is largely irrelevant to how lifeforms evolve, or lifeforms are ‘purposed’ (or motivated by a will, instinct, urge, drive, desire… call it what you like) towards optimising their health? Is life teleological (purposeful, ends-driven) or not?
@Lord Parakeet the Cacophonist, you appear to be confabulating again; I said “the Will is largely irrelevant” to “needs-based socialism”, I neither said nor implied that “‘will’ is largely irrelevant to how lifeforms evolve”. You also seem to be confusing system behaviours and properties with the behaviours and properties of agents (fallacies of composition and division). When I referred to the Will of the Leader or Masses, I was considering the context of political decision-making, but the idea of Political Will is very problematic anyway.
If you had a basic life-science background, you might understand that forms of governance like homeostasis do not require conscious will, but are geared towards health nevertheless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeostasis
But ‘needs-based socialism’ isn’t a form of governance analogous to that of homeostasis. ‘Needs-based socialism’ isn’t comparable to a self-regulating process by which an organism tends to maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are best for its survival; ‘needs-based socialism’ is rather a way of organising the production, distribution, and exchange of wealth in society that’s regulated by an idea of justice, which idea expresses a collective or general will to ensure that everyone has their needs supplied from wealth we produce in common and, through their labour, contributes what they can to our commonwealth in return. Thus, while life may evolve to no purpose, forms of political organisation like ‘needs-based socialism’ are essentially purposive; they exist to realise some idea of justice that their constituents generally will.
@Lord Parakeet the Cacophonist, you are once again blinded by your speciesist prejudices, or are simply ignorant of other social species who govern themselves in non-human ways, like colonies of ants, whose behaviour has evolved a kind of needs-based socialism. Whether ants have a sense of justice is irrelevant to the point I’m making. And I didn’t make an analogy between homeostasis and needs-based socialism, another one of your confabulations. I said some forms of governance do not require conscious will, but are geared towards health nevertheless, which you have not attempted to dispute.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony
Ants haven’t evolved anything (that’s teleological talk); life has evolved ants (and humans, and deciduous trees, and viruses, etc.)
‘…other social species who govern themselves in non-human ways, like colonies of ants, whose behaviour has evolved a kind of needs-based socialism.’
This is sheer anthropomorphism, the attribution of human characteristics to natural (and/or supernatural) phenomena. Socialism is an application of certain ideas of justice. Unless you ascribe a sense of justice to ants, you can’t reasonably describe their behaviour as ‘socialism’.
@Lord Parakeet the Cacophonist, what rubbish. Ants are social animals, humans are social animals. To point out similarities and differences is the opposite of anthropomorphism. Your speciesism, claiming only humans have purposes and values and cultures and social systems, is plain bigotry, and may stem from bigoted humanist-theist doctrines like the theology you so often push in commentary (oh, the hypocrisy of your claiming me evolutionary statements are ‘teleological’).
Some life scientists study how such social behaviours have evolved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociobiology
where there is a great deal of room for evidence-based debate.
I can see how ant behaviour might reasonably be read as ‘social’ and how this social behaviour might be explicable in biological terms, which latter is sociobiology’s defining research programme. But it doesn’t follow from this that ants practice a ‘needs-based socialism’.
(BTW, ‘sociobiology’ takes me back; I once presented a paper On Biological Conceptions of Man to a seminar in Dundee, in which I evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of E.O. Wilson’s arguments in his Sociobiology: The New Synthesis and in his later book On Human Nature. It was the first ‘professional’ paper I ever presented. Happy days!)
On my original point, here’s a further interesting take from the same series on the varying cultures of ‘doomsday preppers’ which suggests contrasting philosophies between urban preppers (who buy a lot of manufactured kit) and wilderness survivalists (who emphasise sourcing from nature), and the individualist/communitarian leanings of each approach (on very small samples, mind):
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/apocalypse-maybe/2024/2/21/dealing-with-this-feeling
Those are USA-based. There is also a Japanese cult and some other stuff.
Wikipedia says the term ‘rugged individualism’ was coined by Herbert Hoover. Well, I guess the USA may have a lot of rough sleepers.
Well said Steve.
We need to evolve from ” left or right” approach to ” right or wrong”.
Subsidiarity is the key change .
This form of direct action highlights the issues and alternatives which are not given proportionate airtime on mainstream media.
The real debate we need is for Scotgov to implement radical system change to empower and resource local communities – the solutions and will to do things differently will quickly follow and gain popular support.
When it is then clear that to invest in food security and energy security we need more powers at national and local level popular support for bigger change may become the settled will!
If the thousands of activists like This is Rigged could unite in one place to influence , propose and enable the required policy change we could be onto something….
( P.S that ‘ place’ is right under our noses!’
‘Subsidiarity is the key change.’
Right on!; public decisions should be made as locally as possible, by the communities that are most affected by those decisions, regardless of whether those communities are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.
But Steve isn’t advocating subsidiarity; he’s advocating white supremacy, whereby a self-proclaimed ‘white’ community retains and extends its birthright to impose its will on other, ‘black’ communities by exercising a monopoly on our public decision-making.
Our task as ‘social justice warriors’ is to resist the ‘white’ hegemony, end its monopoly on our public decision-making, and establish a regime of subsidiarity in its place.
“…The ranks of the educated elites have swollen dramatically in recent decades…”
The ranks of the educated have swollen, certainly. But, as more and more wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, its difficult to see how the “elites have swollen”, dramatically or otherwise.
Do you think nurses, as just one example from today’s workforce who have to be graduates, with student loan repayments taking a slice of their take home pay, have joined your “elites”?
Great!
‘…if the Scottish Government won’t provide communities with a warm space to get a healthy, nutritious meal, they will reclaim spaces themselves…’
The problem is that they won’t, because our communities have largely lost the capacity to reclaim those spaces from government agencies. Much community development work is still required to build that capacity and resilience.
Hopefully, those students, once they graduate, will go on to work in the third sector, rather than to ‘work for the man’ in the private and public sectors, and help to grow their local community’s social capital.
I support the right to food, but not the right to formula milk – unless circumstances mean there is truly no alternative.
It may sound benign, but cow’s milk is produced by the exploitation of mothers of another species.
It’s a particularly bitter irony that we humans – the animal with the most resources of any who has ever lived – are the only mammal which chooses not to breastfeed, despite our long-standing knowledge that human breast milk is the optimum food for infants.
The rate of breastfeeding in the UK is the lowest in the world – only 0.5% of mothers are still doing any breastfeeding after a year.
Not only is this the worst rate for any human population in the world, but it’s very probably the worst rate of breastfeeding of any mammal ever, ie since mammals first evolved 200 million years ago.
Indeed, our only possible competitor is the modern dairy cow, whose inability to breastfeed is entirely imposed on it by human dietary habits – and for which our own pitiful rate of breastfeeding is partially responsible.
Gavin – the low level of breastfeeding is due to many factors.
It is best addressed by education not by demonising mothers and certainly not by making baby milk so costly that newborns are potentially starving.
I agree that the lack of breastfeeding is due to many factors, including education, poverty, the human supremacist worldview, and actual physical / medical problems.
But we could remove it from sale, develop a network of breast milk banks to ensure that no baby went without, and make cow’s milk available on prescription as a last resort.
The price of breast milk would increase further and new borns (truly innocent) would suffer.
A longer term multi- faceted approach is required to increase breastfeeding, not a punitive one.
That’s a bit tyrannical. Shouldn’t it be the mother’s choice, whether to breast-feed or not?
It’s her body, after all.
which mother, the cow mother or the human mother?
The human mother. Whether or not dairy cattle have the same moral status as women is a moot point.
What’s a ‘community food hub’? If some bunch of people wants 10,000 of them in Scotland, please tell us what they are. There would be two on my street apparently, but they would need to evict a couple of flatloads of people first.
While everyone is philosophying and dick fencing – these guys are cracking on with food provision and affirmative action, more power to them, less to you.
@JP, anarchist and environmental movements have deep philosophical underpinnings. To take an example not entirely at random:
“We discover that anarchy is not – as it is commonly understood – simply about a lack of power or authority but is instead a highly complex theory of organisation. Colin Ward’s anarchism was neither utopian nor sectarian but practical and pragmatic, based on the here and now, the local and the everyday.”
“Anarchism is a philosophy that continues to challenge many of our most deeply held beliefs and assumptions, but it also provides a vital lesson in how the world might be transformed not from the top down but the bottom up – like a seed beneath the snow.”
https://freedomnews.org.uk/2024/01/26/colin-ward-everyday-anarchy-the-documentary/
This is Rigged operate in this sphere and their arguments draw on vast previous contributions from philosophers of all ages including Greta Thunberg. Philosophy itself is no bar or impediment to action; the motivation to ascend from the Cave of Shadows stems from it. Put another way, not all philosophers sit in barrels or have tenure.
Time to get your hands dirty, I heard all that 40 years ago, grab a spade and plant some spuds ‘beneath that snow’.
@JP, and yet sitting in my inbox is Greenpeace Unearthed talking about ‘the trouble with tree planting’:
“Planting trees to capture atmospheric carbon is one of the world’s preferred ways of countering climate change, but two papers published this week paint a more complicated picture.”
It is often more important what we refrain from doing, environmentally speaking.
I don’t see the objection to the ‘think’ part of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_globally,_act_locally
and of course sharing, deliberating etc. And I have planted potatoes with reasonable if modest success. But if everybody planted potatoes… well, an appreciation of history might warn us about dangers associated with monocultures.
The real world isn’t Minecraft, and ecosystems are complex, the biosphere orders of magnitude more so.
Wow, what condescending, rehashed drivel – anyone who takes the spud thing literally really does need to get out more.
@Jp, on the contrary, it is a deeply thought out and reasoned position.
Individual actions are not simply additive (linear); if you want to know more, learn about complex systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system
This is Rigged say something very similar:
“Hunger will never be eradicated through individual acts of charity.”
and appear to have a global outlook.
Yes but but, I can remember sitting around cross-legged talking politics and philosophy as a student in the mid 70s and being optimistic about real change in global affairs. Then Thatcher (and Reagan) happened and it felt more like fiddling, Rome and burning. I was at the ‘Battle of Trafalgar’ in 1990, it was that (plus Geoffrey Howe) that final ousted her, not our intellectual diatribes. The world is now a hell of a lot worse and Rome is burnt to a cinder. Time to get out there and walk the walk. My own family are out on the street fighting the good fight and risking arrest, with the merest skim through of Kant and Hegel.
@JP, OK walking, but what is your destination, your map, your plan, your routes, your logistics, your contingencies? Without these, you could be walking round in circles. This is what you want to avoid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_mill
and yes, it is an emergent behaviour from a complex system.
Perhaps effort modelling a destination system and a basic route to it is not such a waste of time?
Other people have looked at social and political tipping points to find the most likely-to-be-effective levers of change so that effort can be co-ordinated, efficient, mutually beneficial, adaptive, robust, resilient, resistant to infiltration, and so on. Such plans to bring about Earth-systems-friendly government may not yet have come to fruition, but neither have masses more people just doing their own thing achieved it either (in fact, moving in the opposite direction).
Honestly, I don’t need a map to find my own backside. Just step outside, you know what needs to be done, knock on doors, create a group, generate momentum, make it happen, stop procrastinating. It is not rocket science, this is what Glasgow “This is Rigged’ are good at. What you are talking about is as much use to people who live in the real world as ‘ornithology is to the birds’ quote, unquote.
@Jp, well, sure, if you’re heading up your own backside, and you really are the kind of person who doesn’t care about importing Colorado beetles into Ireland, I am sure I won’t be able to persuade you to look at the big picture just by one pithy comment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_potato_beetle
At least the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists takes the threat of invasive species seriously.
Oh you humourless windbag, there was no Colorado beetle in Ireland at that time even though I was only a misguided child, there was no danger, you can sleep easy in your bed. As I said before you really do need to get out more.
It’s a bit soon to be planting tatties, JP. I get my first earlies in towards the end of March, my second earlies in mid-April, and my main crop in mid- to late April.
Philosophising and affirmative action (like planting tatties) are complementary, not mutually exclusive.
Ha ha, yes, of course, you are talking to an Irishman who should know better. I can remember as a child my father smuggling spuds over in a false bottom suitcase, because he hated British potatoes so much, and we all pitched in to plant them up. Colorado beetles be damned.
Irishman… Potatoes. Bit of a racial stereotype there, n’est-ce pas?